Forever
by Lhmac
Summary: The Doctor now has Rose back. She promised him forever and that's what she's going to give him, no matter what the cost...
1. Chapter 1

**Haha! New story!**

**This is actually the sequel to my sequel of Without You by my Side. So if you don't read those first, then this story may not make a lot of sense - although it is pretty confusing anyway so maybe you will be able to follow it just as well without having read my previous two stories.**

**Well, if you decide you're going to go back and read my stuff, I suggest you read this chapter first to see if you like what I write. Always good to check first, but I definitely hope you enjoy it. **

**Well, in case anyone has forgotten, the starting scene is on board the TARDIS, and The Doctor is trying to remember how to get back to the right universe with Rose in tow.**

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The Doctor started off by pushing numerous buttons and murmuring to his beloved TARDIS. Rose contentedly watched him stabbing at buttons, pulling at wires and kicking things for about half an hour before she got bored. She walked over to the console and ran her hand along it. The TARDIS shuddered and Rose jumped backwards. 

"What was that?" Rose asked nervously, not taking her eyes off the blue pulsing rotor.

"She's probably just happy to see you." The Doctor muttered nonchalantly as he continued with whatever he was doing.

"She shuddered. It was as if something recognised me, but it wasn't her."

"Hmm." The Doctor didn't seem the least bit interested as he fiddled with his whatever-it-was.

"It was as if… as if The TARDIS was trying to protect me from something." Rose continued as if she hadn't noticed The Doctor's apparent ignorance of her distress. At her words, though, The Doctor looked up sharply.

"She can't save you from what's going to happen if you come with me." The Doctor told her sadly as he stood and slowly approached Rose. "If you choose to be with me, then you choose to share in my curse, the curse of the Time Lords."

"You make it sound so ominous, Doctor. There is no curse, not with me around. I'm already dead to that universe, so there's no one to have to watch die."

"Maybe."

"Not maybe, Doctor. It's as simple as that. I-" Rose's hands flew to her head and she sank slowly to her knees.

"What?" The Doctor asked, alarmed. "What's wrong, Rose?" He knelt down beside her and took her in his arms.

"Being here in the TARDIS. It's like you said, Doctor. We don't know what's going to happen to me."

"Well, I know a little." He assured her, letting her out of his grasp. "It happened to me first, after all."

"What happened to you, Doctor?" You don't even know. I was there and I-" She paused and frowned. "I wasn't there. Why do I think I was? Who do these memories belong to?"

Rather than looking concerned, Rose saw The Doctor smile.

"Wow. You remember." He said excitedly. "Do you remember being with me?"

"I… remember… being without you."

"Yeah I know, but at the same time you-"

"It was so many years." Rose cut him off and spoke as if she hadn't heard him at all. She was talking to herself. "I was so lonely, tried so hard to reach out to you because the only thing that hurt more than my loneliness was…" She looked him in the eye. "…yours."

"Mine?"

"Doctor… I can feel your pain." Rose now sounded distressed. "Why… why do I know everything you felt? Why do I feel so much of your loneliness, Doctor? A lost world, lost friends and family… Why couldn't I help you?"

"Oh Rose, I'm so sorry." The Doctor turned his face away from her. Rose didn't move with him, though, she just stared blankly at his back.

"I kept trying to reach you, but every time you pushed me away." She placed a hand on her chest. "I was my fault, so I had to keep trying with everything I had." The Doctor turned to her again, and took a hold of her face to make her look at him.

"It was not your fault, Rose." He stated firmly.

"And you thought it was your fault." Rose continued sadly, still talking as if she was in some kind of trance.

"Rose. Listen to me. Stop this." The Doctor now had her by the shoulders and was shaking her.

"But these memories, they're…" Rose looked right into his eyes, the sanity back in her voice. He let go of her as she lowered her voice. "Mine?"

"They're a part of you, yes. But they're… I don't know how to explain it." He told her just as softly.

"Something else you don't know. What happened to my old Doctor?" She joked slowly, swaying a little. "Is there a way to get them out of my head?"

"A way to get your own memories out of your head? No, I can't."

"Well, tell me where they came from, then. Maybe that'll make this all better."

"Okay. When you had me with you these past three years, I had you with me, too."

"You… you told… me that." Rose seemed to be finding it hard to string a sentence together, she winced at almost every word.

"Yes, and if you could remember anything beyond all of those emotions, then you'd remember being with me, telling me that everything was going to be alright, that we'd be together no matter what. These past three years you haven't been whole, Rose. And I guess that headache is how it feels to get a part of you back."

"And you… weren't either?"

"That's right. I was with you." The Doctor took Rose's arms and pulled her to her feet. He started to take her out of the room, but Rose pulled out of his grasp and leant on the console.

"Can you remember me, then?" She asked slowly. She was no longer in pain, but still slow with her words.

"Not yet, but sometime soon I probably will."

"The TARDIS is making me feel better, clearing my mind a little. You should keep working on getting us back home."

"You're right." The Doctor sighed. "I just wish that I had some idea of where to start."

"Well, start with me. If I can remember…" Rose pushed herself away from the console, but staggered when she was just a step away and had to go back. "…If I can clear my mind enough to remember how you got here…" She closed her eyes to concentrate and felt The Doctor move in front of her. She opened her eyes and smiled.

"It's so hard to concentrate with you there." She said cheekily.

"Fine, I'll go then." The Doctor said. He turned to move and Rose grabbed his arm.

"You're not going anywhere." She told him. As he turned back around, Rose reached up and kissed him passionately. "I need you so much." She said as she pulled away to take a breath. The Doctor opened his mouth to say something, but Rose cut him off with another kiss.

"Rose." The Doctor gasped as Rose stopped for another breath. She started to move in again, but he jumped backwards. "Don't you think that we should be working on a way of getting out of here?"

"I think we've done too much in one day and it is time for a break now, Doctor." Rose moved away from the console again, this time only wincing slightly. "I'm sick of getting sidetracked by Sim and lost memories and… The Face of Boe?" She frowned at the memory, but then shrugged. "I don't care right now. I think some sleep will help with the memories, and I think that I need to kiss you again, Doctor. I need you with me, and I need to promise you forever again because we're together and now nothing can pull us apart."

"Whatever you say." The Doctor surrendered to her kiss as she jumped into his arms. "But tomorrow, we're moving out of this backwards universe."

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Haha. Sorry it didn't really go anywhere. I kind of got lost in that chapter. It was quite fun to write, as well. Hoping to update every week now, sorry it's gonna take so long, but there's some stuff about computer-sharing that needs to be resolved… **

**Anyways, hope you liked the chapter. See ya next time. REVIEW! **

**Mikkifavo**


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry about the break. I know I have mentioned enough times the struggle that I have had to go through to get on the computer, and then I got a job. Now I have a laptop, I can update whenever I have the time and inspiration. **

**I am so confused as to where this is going right now. I had a break for so long that I forgot what I was going to do next.**

**I think that a beta would be a good idea, if anyone was interested.**

**So... where were we up to?**

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Rose woke up to the soft humming of the TARDIS. She sat up to see that she was in the infirmary and groaned. She lay back down. Her head was throbbing and she just wanted to go back to sleep. 

"Doctor!" She called out, resisting the temptation to close her eyes and relax until she was lost to the conscious world once more. Almost immediately she saw him appear in the doorway. She smiled when she saw him and tried to sit up again, but winced and lay down. He was at her side in an instant, looking worried at her condition.

"What happened?" She asked.

"Well... I don't think anything much really happened. I woke up in the morning and you... kept sleeping. In fact, you just wouldn't get up at all." Typical Doctor, avoiding the question.

"So what happened?" She repeated firmly, indicating she wanted a bit more information.

"As far as I can tell, you had an easier change than me." He was purposely being cryptic, and it would have annoyed Rose if she didn't remember that this was why she had so badly wanted to be around him once more.

"So I'm what... different now?" Her muddled brain was slowly working out what his words meant. She felt like she hadn't had enough rest and just wanted to give up on keeping her eyes open, but she wanted to know what he was talking about.

"I'm not sure. You should know."

"Well, I'm sore." Rose had said it without thinking. The last thing she wanted to cause him was more worry, but she had done it with three words.

"How sore?" He asked, looking concerned.

"Its getting worse I think." Rose wanted to shut her mouth, but knew logically that it was probably best that he knew. "When I first woke I wasn't in so much pain. Now..." she moaned loudly, making The Doctor jump.

"What can I do?" He asked.

"Take me back to our own universe. Can you do that yet?"

"Yes. I'll get to it." He nodded enthusiastically and started to move out of the room when Rose called out to him.

"Oi! You've gotta take me with you. There's no way I'm staying in here while you jolt around the poor TARDIS."

"No, I guess not." The Doctor admitted, stepping back into the room and taking Rose's arm as she flung it out to him and sat herself up. When she was sitting, she stopped and took some deep breaths. The Doctor frowned but said nothing. He then lifted his companion into his arms. He walked along slowly as she stifled yelps of pain for the benefit of his nerves.

Her change wasn't the same as his had been.

He was kind of hoping that it would have just happened while she was sleeping. She had slept long enough, after all. She had been asleep for a few days now while he had figured out how to get back to his own universe.

It had been a long, boring couple of days without Rose around. It was strange how used to her he had gotten. He almost felt like she had never left.

It was as if when Rose wasn't around, nothing held the excitement it did when she was there. Usually wandering aimlessly through the TARDIS and thinking was stimulating, but without Rose it was dull. He tried tinkering with the TARDIS, but even that got boring. When he had finally figured out how to get back, he felt proud. It wasn't an easy fix. The TARDIS had done a fancy bit of flying to get them there in the first place, but now she was too weak to do it all herself.

While The Doctor had been lost in his anxious thoughts about his two favourite girls, Rose had gone silent. He looked down at her, expecting and hoping to see her asleep in his arms. But as he looked down at her, he saw her staring back up at him, her eyes filled with the pain she was obviously trying to hide from him. When her eyes flashed gold, he almost dropped his precious load.

"What?" She asked.

"Oh. It was... nothing." The Doctor had considered telling her for only a split second.

"Something obviously startled you." Rose pointed out.

"I just had a revelation on how to get back is all." He told her. He hadn't avoided the question and it wasn't an obvious lie. Big points for that. He was just about to take Rose back, so she'd never catch him out on that one. The last thing he wanted to do was worry her with tales of the Bad Wolf at that particular moment in time.

After walking for what seemed like hours (the TARDIS was obviously not working right in the parallel universe) they got to the console room and The Doctor placed Rose carefully on the chair he had tucked away in a corner for just this purpose - not that he wanted injured companions on his ship, though. He stepped back and looked at her all sprawled out on it. She wasn't moving a muscle and had her eyes open and fixed on him.

"You know, that's a little unnerving." He commented, breaking the silence between them. There was no sound but the slight humming of the TARDIS as she seemed to process the words.

"Sorry. You're the only thing I can focus on right now." She explained.

"Well." The Doctor stated, putting his hands together and turning to face the consol. I guess it is time we got out of here then. Time to get back to the universe where the heart is." He turned back to face Rose. "But you should know that once we get there, you are most likely going to... well... change."

"Didn't you just say I already have changed?"

"I did think that before, but now..." He trailed off. "Just be prepared, okay? I would ask you if you maybe wanted to stay, but I know what the answer will be, so there's really no point."

"I think I can deal with that." Rose gave him a small smile.

"Well then. One, two, three. Here we go Rose." He banged a button on the console a little harder than he probably should have and pulled a lever towards himself, checking the readouts on the screen.

The TARDIS gave a terrible shudder and seemed to turn onto its side, sending The Doctor careening into the far wall as if it was the floor. The chair with Rose on it slid towards him, but didn't make it before the TARDIS tilted the other way, throwing Rose out into the opposite wall. She cried out in pain and The Doctor struggled his way over to her as the TARDIS straightened itself out and started to give a loud metallic clang that was frightening, as if someone was trying to get inside.

She was obviously not young enough to push herself through the fabric between with the ease she used to. The Doctor saw Rose hit her head and he was thrown to the other side, banging his hip on the consol. He grabbed onto something and held on, hoping that Rose would be okay as he watched her bounce around and waited for his chance to help her.

**

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And while I should be working, here I was writing you all some fanfiction. Someday I might have to do the work I get paid for – or maybe I should get paid for doing this work. **

**Well, anyways, as always, review. Love you all. Thanks for sticking around. There'll be more as it comes to me.**

**Mikkifavo**


	3. Chapter 3

**Not ****gonna**** go on a bit rant about reviews. ****Who needs '****em****, hey?**** I can live with knowing that I at least have three people who can be bothered (that was me trying to guilt-trip you into reviewing, in case you didn't notice) So thank you Jacqueline Roget, horsefly and gaiafreedom21 **

**And people without ****a**** account? ****You can review too, you know. Just click the review button at the bottom of the page (I do enable anonymous reviews)**** (cough, cough Andrew cough, cough)**

**So, without further ado or pleading, I return to Forever where I left off (well, almost)**

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"Rose?" At the soft voice of her Doctor, Rose opened her eyes to the console room of the TARDIS. She had been thrown off the chair and was lying on the floor. 

"We had a bumpy ride," she mumbled, smiling at The Doctor. "Am I... I'm back home?" She asked him. He nodded. "But that's... impossible." She grinned at him and she sat up.

"Yes. But coming home means..." The Doctor winced. "... That you're going to... change."

"Nothing I can't handle," she commented happily, but frowned as she said it. "Doctor..." She started.

"Yes?"

"Why am I restrained?" She asked, holding up her arms to reveal that she was chained to the grating on the floor. The Doctor gave her a pain-filled look.

"Because this is going to hurt," he answered apologetically, watching her with sad eyes, "and I can't do anything about it."

"How much?"

"Enough."

"You're not going to tell me, are you?" She asked playfully, trying to change the mood.

"Nope." He answered sadly, not even letting Rose's smile cheer him up. The chains rattled as Rose reached out and held his face underneath his chin.

"Good to see you're still you." She said before she kissed him. The kiss only lasted a second before Rose gasped and pulled back. The Doctor looked stricken, but said nothing.

"Doctor, don't look so depressed, you're gonna make me scared." Rose chided him, giving a little shiver even as she said it.

"You're not scared already?"

"I've told you before. I'll never be scared as long as I have you with me."

OIOIOIOIOIOIIO

The Doctor cringed with every scream Rose gave. He didn't know it was going to be like this, or he'd have never willingly submitted her to it. He had caused her pain and that knowledge cut to his heart, but all he could do was sit and watch just out of Rose's reach as her eyes flashed gold and she struggled against her restraints.

"Doctor!" She screamed out in agony.

He could deal with the screaming, had dealt with screaming both inside his head and from many others over his long life, but it broke him when Rose started to cry.

"Doctor, where are you?" She called out as tears began to edge down her face. He couldn't reach out to her, couldn't help her so he simply slid down the console and tried to drown out her cries as he retreated into his thoughts.

_I'm so sorry._ He wished that his thoughts could be heard by Rose, wished that there was a way around the pain, wished that he hadn't lost her in the first place. Oh, there was so much that The Doctor wished, so much that he had hoped he would never subject his beautiful Rose to, but at the same time, he was pleased – at least a little.

She could be with him. They could be together, forever, just like she had promised all that time ago. Nothing could ever separate them again. The Face of Boe had promised... He'd promised that there would be no more lonely god. Then he had to wonder just what he had gotten Rose into without ever having meant to.

Falling asleep to Rose's cries did not make for a peaceful sleep, but in dreaming he had an outlet, a way to escape. Something was tugging at his memories and seemed determined to come about in his dreams.

He felt her pain. For the first time, The Doctor felt what Rose had been feeling. It wasn't her present pain that he could still hear her cries for even without being awake, but it was something different, something more.

"Doctor?" She had choked out when she had first seen him.

"Shh. I'm here." He soothed her. "I promised I'd never leave you, didn't I?"

"Are you really here?" The Doctor felt the discomfort of his other self – so different to the feelings of his past regenerations. These were so much more tangible, alive. They were so much more of who he was, even if he knew that his body had never really been there.

As memories and feelings flooded back to him, conversations and comfort and stolen kisses that were never quite real, he woke with a start. Rose had ceased making any sound at all, and was lying peacefully on the grating.

He felt so guilty, so very guilty. Not only for falling asleep while she was screaming, her body changing in ways neither of them could understand, but because he had left her. He had felt the pain of her love for Sim. His jealousy that she could ever love another man, and he had left her alone when he had promised he wouldn't ever do that to her.

It was yet another wish. He wished he hadn't done that.

He sat in a daze then jumped up suddenly as he realised there was another presence in his TARDIS. He turned around and scanned the room. It seemed no one was there, and yet... As his eyes fell back onto Rose, he saw a ghostly figure lean over her.

He recognised the figure, but why would he be there?

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**Hope you liked. Sorry it wasn't up earlier. I swear my impatience was making me move quicker, but my internet connection has even been making me wait for new episodes of Doctor Who - man, LOVED Blink!! It was a great episode. Up there with my favourites.**

**Anwyways, please review. I love reviews (don't we all)**

**Mikkifavo**


	4. Chapter 4

**My thoughts tend to get more muddled as we go on.**

**Many thanks have to go to my wonderful beta, horsefly, because she put in a hole load of trying to understand me in this chapter. Guess I'm the only one who understands me, huh? Horsefly also did the fun job of fixing my spelling/grammatical errors.  
****Let me tell you, this chapter made a whole lot less sense without her.  
****If you still have trouble grasping my train of thought, tis totally my fault. **

**Like I said, muddled brain.**

**AAAAANNNNDDDD...  
THANKYOU. Geez, you have no idea how happy I was at all those reviews. Some had me blushing. You're all so great. So, of course, I have to say thankyou to Andrew (made you review. lol), Jacqueline Roget (always fun to have your word in ********), gaiafreedom21 (you really know how to ask the tough questions), Wonderlands-Pokemon-Master (I'm awesome? Woo!), horsefly (my wonderful beta), anonymous (ya really helped me to feel confident about the direction I was headed), roxy (keeping it up as well as I can. thankyou) and arieslily17 (I'm glad I did it well, and you must feel lucky to have missed out on all the apprehension in the cliffhangers)**

**Anyway, on to the chapter, hey?**

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"Sim?" Rose wondered if she was delirious from the pain as she saw who was standing over her. 

"Yeah, I'm here Rose. Here with you." He said soothingly. Rose felt dazed as she eased herself up slowly, noting she was still handcuffed to the floor.

"But... why?"

"Because he can't be?" Sim answered her timidly.

"You're trying to replace my Doctor again? You're not even real." Rose's voice hardened as she got a grip on the situation.

"I wasn't real in the other universe. Now, though..." He trailed off, as if afraid of the emotions that his words would bring out in Rose.

"What?"

"I'm... everything you could have as a human. Everything you wanted from a normal life, if you'd never met him. If you didn't have him now." Sim wrung his hands nervously as he spoke, obviously trying to hide something.

"But... why?" Rose repeated her earlier question, calming down and just wondering what the heck was going on.

"Because you need to have the choice."

"No I don't. I made my choice a long time ago. I'm not leaving him, Sim." Tears started to form in her eyes and took the long slow path down her face.

"If you don't make a decision, he can't make you do this."

"Who? The Doctor?"

Sim gave a sly smile.

"No. 'him'. He can't make you change and stay with the Doctor if you're not 100 per cent sure. No one else can make this decision for you. So... yes or no?"

"How is it even possible for me to have that decision? I've already been through all of..." She shuddered. "...That."

"Okay, okay. So we cheated a little bit. We already knew what your answer would be."

"What if I decided to do the opposite just to prove you wrong?" Rose started a banter with Sim as if it was the old days. She saw again what she saw in him before and couldn't seem to shake her emotions off.

"Alright, so we took a guess as to what your reaction would be and completely took your choice away." Sim backtracked. "We can't have a lonely god. We promised him he wouldn't be alone."

"But if I don't have a choice, what are you doing here?" Rose was genuinely confused. There were no more irritating questions in her mind, just the thought that she no longer had any idea what was going on.

"That is a very good question. And the answer is that, as Sim, I started to care about you so much that we had to see if you were alright. You've got so much more to go through, and we just couldn't bear to watch you as if you didn't have a choice."

"So who are you? Who is this 'we' you keep referring to?"

"Well, it's really just me since the other part of me may not be so willing to have me back. Of course, I knew this was going to happen when we split in the first place. All I could do was split into two extremes, so I left the pushier one here because I knew The Doctor could deal with him, while you..."

"Now my head hurts even more than it did before."

"You're The Face of Boe?" The Doctor asked, appearing behind him. "No wonder I could see you in the alternate universe... But how did you get there?"

"Now, the answer is obvious there, Doctor. I was never there in the first place. I was as much a fake image as the other you in that universe."

"So..." Rose began. She stopped herself "No, never mind. I don't get it."

"You wouldn't."

Rose suddenly felt some resentment towards this man – who she now knew used to be a kindly old face. So she was a human, that didn't mean that he had to be so smug about knowing everything. She didn't say anything out loud, but Sim must have sensed her mood.

"Ahh, Rose. I'm sorry. You'll understand in time. I promise. Your mind is expanding for bigger and better things."

"You've been messing with my mind?" There was a pause. "You've been READING my mind?" Rose couldn't decide what she felt more scandalized about. She just opted for still being confused.

"So what's going to happen when you join back up with yourself?" The Doctor seemed really interested in how this change had come about.

"It's time I was long gone, and splitting myself in two just prolonged my death. As much as the other part of me has enjoyed being all-powerful, finding the Skasis Paradigm too, I see. All things must come to an end. Everything has its time and everything dies, Doctor. Keep that in mind while _you're_ playing the immortality role."

"How can you offer immortality and then tell me that there's no such thing?"

"Because I was never a legend, Doctor. I never travelled through time, was never imprinted on the minds of all I touched. I was never known in the past, present and future simultaneously, was never at the beginning or the end of the universe. So while you are somewhat changed because I thought it fun to mess around with your DNA, you are a mortal, and you are forever at the same time. And you're not lonely. You have your Rose. You chose her, and she will be with you."

"But what's different about us? You messed with our DNA, but what did you do?" Rose found the questions were back, stirring up her mind. She wanted to know, but she didn't at the same time. Some inexplicable curiosity was poking at her, and she was still completely confused as well. She wanted to sleep. That was a rational decision. Sleep. Maybe she would find that this had all been an extremely strange dream. Maybe she'd find that the past few years had been a weird dream. The thought was pushed out of her mind before it went as far as to say that the Doctor and the TARDIS were all a dream, too.

"Ahh... well. That's the question, isn't it? The thing everyone is dying to know. The reason for the pain and the venturing into the other universe and the decisions..." Sim trailed off, shooting a sympathetic look at Rose, and giving a sneaky smirk to the Doctor

"And?" The Doctor prompted. "What is the answer?"

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**Sorry about the cliffhanger --grins evilly--**

**Seems to be getting harder and harder to write these chapters. I remember back when I was writing 'Without You by my Side' over in England, and I would update every couple of days. Then life got utterly complicated. I can't believe how far I've come in this… what? Close to a year now. I have a job. Jobs waste so much time. So, forgive me, as usual, wonderful readers and reviewers --bows--- I'm still trying to make this as interesting as I possibly can.**

**Woah. Haven't written a long AN in a while :) I missed it**

**See ya next time. Hopefully REALLY soon.**

**As always, please review.**

**Mikkifavo**


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